No, Android TV and Google TV aren’t the same. Android TV is an operating system, whereas Google TV is a UI built on top of Android TV that provides a more content focussed user experience on Android TV devices. Besides that, Google TV also brings along several new features—as mentioned earlier in the post—otherwise missing on Android TV.
For our money, Google TV is the way to go, since it offers everything that made Android TV great, but with more capability, better content discovery and all sorts of new usability improvements.
A frequent question we ran across in our research was “Is Google TV still Android TV?”.
First and foremost, Google TV is still Android TV. The simplest way to think about Google TV is to imagine Android TV with a fresh coat of paint. Google TV is similar in concept to overlays like Samsung’s One UI. A Samsung Galaxy phone with One UI is still running Android.
By contrast, Android TV is set-up more like a streaming device than a smart TV. If I had one big complaint about Android TV, is that if you try to use it as a “normal TV”, it seems to take longer to get to where you want to go. If you’ve used the NVIDIA Shield TV or Google Chromecast, then you’ll feel right at home with the Android TV interface.
What is the difference between Android TV and Android TV?
The main difference is an Android TV has a full-fledged operating system behind the casting functionality, which makes it a more powerful media device. This isn’t what you want. One thing to keep in mind is there’s a big difference between Android TV and plain old Android.
Moreover, what is an Android TV?
The most common being: Android TV: It is defined as a smart TV concept that was designed by Google over the Android operating system and as such is a very powerful system. It was primarily developed as a replacement for Google TV.
What is the difference between Samsung One UI and Google TV?
A Samsung Galaxy phone with One UI is still running Android. In the same way, devices with Google TV are still running Android TV underneath. The difference here is One UI is exclusive to Samsung devices, while Google TV will run on Android TV devices from all companies.
Is Chromecast replacing Android TV?
With the arrival of the new Chromecast with Google TV, Android TV will be replaced over the next couple of years. Google has said that in 2021, Google TV will appear on set-top boxes, dongles, and Smart TVs in replacement of Android TV. By 2022, all Android TV devices will use the new Google TV platform.